


Darkness

by chantiemaya



Series: Trixya Drabble / Unfinished Stories / One shots [6]
Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Childhood Trauma, F/F, Roommates, afraid of the dark, afraid of thunder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-20 01:23:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20667002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chantiemaya/pseuds/chantiemaya
Summary: Prompt: Person A and B live together. A is afraid of the dark and the power goes out, B comforts them. Add thunder and lightning.TW: mentions past emotional abuse





	Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> Trying to get back into writing with some fun prompts.

Friday night, eleven o’clock, and Trixie Mattel isn’t dancing in a club or talking to cute ladies in a bar. No, she’s in her bathroom drying her hair, and she’s wearing a bathrobe. It’s not a recent college graduate’s dream to stay home on Friday nights, and it’s never been Trixie’s goal to work retail six days a week and get up early on Saturdays. But her stupid musical theatre major hasn’t helped her break into the Los Angeles musical scene just yet, so retail it is, for now. 

Her blow dryer slowly putters out with a weird buzzing sound and Trixie stares at it, puzzled. There’s a tiny spark around the socket and then the whole apartment goes dark with one click. A split second later, there’s a bloodcurdling scream from the other room.

“Katya!” Trixie yells while she pulls the cord to unplug the hairdryer. She tosses it in the sink and feels her way out the door and into the hallway. 

“Trixie what the fuck! Where are you?” Katya yells from her room.

“I’m coming! Stay in your room.”   
  
The apartment is pitch black because it’s late and they have all the curtains drawn. Trixie reaches Katya’s room by feeling along the walls and tripping over a pair of high heeled boots right beside her door. The door is open and Trixie stumbles to the bed. Katya is sitting on top of the sheets and throws herself against Trixie. She’s shaking and whimpering.

Katya is extremely afraid of the dark, and even though she has refused to explain it to Trixie until now, Trixie has seen her roommate’s fear before and knew right then that she had to take it seriously. 

“I’m here, it’s alright,” Trixie coos as she sits down on the bed next to Katya who still clings to her for dear life. “Breathe, Kat.”   
  
Trixie puts her hand on Katya’s back, slowly rubbing up and down, and breathes with her. In through the nose, out through the mouth, on counts of three, then four.

“What happened?” Katya whispers.

“I think my hairdryer blew the fuse or something, I’m not sure.”   
  
“Oh my god. Did it spark?” Katya squeezes Trixie’s arm even tighter.

“It did, but it didn’t catch on fire. I don’t think.” Trixie knows she shouldn’t have said this because Katya is shaking again. 

“Fucking hell, you don’t think? You don’t think our house is gonna burn down, Trixie?!”

“Breathe, please.”   
  
“So I can smell the fire that’s going to consume us?”   
  
Trixie sighs. “Ok, I’ll go and check.”   
  
“No! Don’t leave me alone.”   
  
Trixie stands up and Katya hugs her around the waist.

“Come with me then.” 

Trixie holds Katya’s hand as they feel their way through the darkness of the apartment. Their eyes have gotten used to the darkness now so they can make out the shapes of furniture, but they still manage to bump into things. 

The bathroom is completely dark. There are no flames, no smell of smoke. Trixie’s phone on the shelf where they store their towels lights up with a text. 

Pearl: _you in the dark too?_

Trixie: _you too?!_

Pearl: _yeah blackout half the city_

“Pearl says it’s a blackout, so it wasn’t the hairdryer,” Trixie says. She turns on the flashlight on her phone and with Katya still clinging to her arm, they shuffle into the living room and hunt for candles. They gather all their candles and a lighter and bring everything to Katya’s room. When her whole room bathes in soft candlelight, she breathes a little easier. 

“Thanks,” Katya says. She crawls on the bed next to Trixie who sits cross-legged in the middle and texts Pearl. 

“It’s alright, babe. You know I--” 

Before Trixie can finish her sentence, the room lights up with white lightning and a deafening thunder crashes through the sky outside. It’s so loud that it must be right over their heads. Trixie and Katya grab each other at the same time. Katya is shaking again and when the noise dies down, Trixie hears her sobbing. 

Trixie doesn’t say anything, just pulls Katya down on the bed with her and lies down. Katya is wearing pajamas and leggings, Trixie is in her robe with nothing underneath. She pulls the covers up to their shoulders and they hide just in time for a new round of thunder and lightning. The sky opens up and rain comes down in hard, straight lines.

Katya sobs with her face against Trixie’s chest while Trixie’s fingers run through her hair. Katya’s hand is holding on to Trixie’s robe so tightly her knuckles are white. 

“I’m sorry,” Katya sobs. 

“Shhh. ‘s Okay,” Trixie whispers. 

Trixie doesn’t mind comforting Katya. She and Katya have been friends since meeting in their college production of  _ Joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat _ in which Trixie played the narrator and Katya made costumes for. Katya helped Trixie with her lines while Trixie spent hours helping Katya sew after her partner dropped out.

They graduated on a joined effort of Trixie singing a solo show she wrote herself, for which Katya designed and made her costumes. Their friendship gave them a chance to relax and feel less like outsiders in a college environment where everybody seemed so much more confident. Moving to LA was a joined decision and since then they’ve been inseparable. 

Trixie thinks Katya knows that Trixie loves her beyond the boundaries of friendship, but they have never spoken about it. Even after that drunk kiss at a house party months ago, they never discussed it - and now they’re in a bed together, and Trixie is naked under her robe, and Katya is crying on her chest. 

“I am afraid of the dark because of my mother,” Katya whispers barely audible into the fluff of Trixie’s robe. Trixie doesn’t answer, just keeps stroking Katya’s hair with one hand and holding her tight with the other. 

“She drank herself into a delirium every night, and sometimes she would start talking to herself, screaming, throwing things. She would come into my room and talk to me about how unfair the world is, how awful it is to have a baby at seventeen and have men run out on you every single time. She would rant about how ungrateful I was, such a bad kid while she had given up her youth for me.”

Katya takes a deep, shaky breath. The sobbing has calmed down and she wipes her tears on Trixie’s robe, then shuffles a little closer to her and wraps her arm around her waist. Trixie pushes away the warmth in her heart, the butterflies in her stomach, and the pink hearts that float around in her brain. She’s not elated about being so close to Katya while her best friend is going through her childhood trauma. She’s not a creep. 

“I’m so sorry,” Trixie whispers and puts a little kiss on Katya’s forehead. 

“The darkness, loud sounds, sudden movements, aggression. I can’t deal with any of it because it’s been ingrained in me since I was little that these things are… I don’t know, a threat?”

“They are triggers,” Trixie says. “You’ve been traumatized and even though the trauma is just in your head, external triggers will bring you back.”

“It sucks,” Katya says with a deep sigh. Just then, there’s another bout of thunder, but it’s not as bad as the first two. It seems to have moved away from their building. 

Trixie feels Katya’s body stiffen and her grip on Trixie’s waist tighten, but when the thunder is gone she relaxes somewhat. They talk softly to each other, Trixie explaining some of her own childhood drama to Katya and how she’s managed to control her triggers with help from her high school counselor. She’s planning to get into therapy when she’s making a little more money, but so far, her creativity has served as a good outlet. 

“You can sing a song that I have no connection to and still make me cry just with how much feeling is in your voice,” Katya says. She looks up and smiles at Trixie.

“Awww, thanks. I’m glad I’m able to convey what I feel.”

Katya’s hand comes up to Trixie’s face and she pushes a stray curl behind her ear. 

“You’re amazing, you know that?”

Trixie stares into Katya’s sky-blue eyes and her mouth turns dry. 

“You’re crazy, you know that?” Trixie gives back. Katya giggles and kicks her feet under the comforter. 

It’s a couple of hours later when both women wake up with a shock when the TV loudly plays a rerun of  _ Law and Order: Special Victims Unit _ . The power must have come back on and the teenager on the show is telling the cops that she became a hooker because her mother told her that’s all she’s good for.

“Fuck, we fell asleep with the candles on,” Trixie moans. She’s wrapped up in a mess of duvet and robe, and Katya’s arm is still slung around her waist. 

“Don’t care. Was good sleep,” Katya mumbles into Trixie’s hair. 

“It’s too warm.” Trixie struggles to untangle herself from Katya and all the different layers of fabric. Her hair is a mess now, having fallen asleep with it still wet. It’s 3 a.m. 

She leaves Katya in the bed and rushes through the house to turn off all the lights, then to her bedroom to put on some underwear and a shirt to sleep in. She still has five hours of sleep left and she’s going to get them, damn it. 

When she’s in bed braiding her hair, a rumpled Katya wanders in. She’s holding her pillow and she looks like she’s eight instead of twenty-four.

“Can I sleep with you?”


End file.
